He froze. No movement, not even the slightest, or some strap or latch on his gear might rattle or click and spell his doom. He tried to imagine a great dark spot where he was standing, a hole that he could hide in, anything to keep the bouda outside the door from sensing his presence.
Then, the heavy breathing outside changed. The bouda began to sniff the air like a dog, and Dread knew the game had to be up. If their sense of smell was anywhere near as good as the hyenas they resembled, there was no way he was walking away from this.
He started to lower his shoulders in slow degrees, preparing himself for the impact of that heavy body on the door he held just shy of clicking shut. His free hand came off of his F-shok… no good once the bouda was on top of him… and started easing around toward the knife on his belt.
He’d have to end it quick. Kill this bouda with the knife, get clear of the body and get the F-shok back into play, or the other bouda would bury him under their weight and rend him limb from limb.
Easier said than done, he knew, but he couldn’t picture the worst, now. He couldn’t let himself get lost in the terror of what they might do to him. He had to focus on what he was going to do to them, stay on the positive, keep the initiative, or he really wouldn’t stand a chance.
Then, more yelps from further down the hallway. For a moment, Dread thought the bouda outside might have called for reinforcements, but instead, it stopped its sniffing, and then, he heard footsteps running off after the other bouda.
A few more yelps, again from down the hallway, and he knew the coast was clear. He let the door click shut, leaning up against it with his eyes closed, letting his breath come in and out normally.
I think I’d like to have an aneurysm now, he thought, and then shook his head to clear it and get himself back in the game. Shifty and Jolly. The bouda had to have spotted Shifty and Jolly; it was the only reason they would be calling out for everyone to join the party. Which meant that the clock was ticking on their lives, and the only way to save his friends was to find Martin and put his lights out for good.
Game face, Dread, he said to himself. Game face. They’re counting on you. Quit being the prey and get back to being the predator.
It was what he needed. Reminding himself what the stakes were, reminding himself that it wasn’t only his life on the line, but those of his friends, as well. It made the job easier. Thinking about the others. Getting stuck on thinking about his own life made him tense up and back off and become too defensive; when he lost himself in looking out for his team, he lost his fear as well.
By the time he stepped back into the hallway, he was focused again. Now that the bouda had moved out and away from him, he could risk a little faster movement, so he got his bearings from the placard pointing the way to the elevators and took off at a slow run, trying to keep his equipment from rattling and giving him away.
There wasn’t much choice. Time was a factor. He needed to move fast. Shifty and Jolly wouldn’t be able to hold out for long.
He made a turn and then, his disorientation from being lost disappeared. He recognized where he was now. They’d come down this hallway after blowing up the stairwells. The elevators were close. Very close.
Dread slowed his run to a fast, smooth walk, scanning left and right constantly for threats. He didn’t think any bouda were nearby, but he knew from hard experience how clever they could be. Not to mention, Oswald and Martin had to be close, and they were much more dangerous than the bouda.
He heard them before he saw them. Their voices carried through the hallway from close up ahead; around the corner where the lobby for the elevators sat back from the hallway. Right where Adjani had said they would be.
“What’s wrong with you?” the first voice said.
It was Oswald. The last time Dread had seen him, his jaw had been wired shut, but he definitely recognized the big blowhard’s voice spewing out hot air around the corner.
Kel must’ve repaired his jaw when she Revived him, Dread thought. Figures.
“There’s so many,” the other voice said. It must’ve been Martin. “I’ve conjured so damn many.”
“Quit being such a pussy.”
“Do you have any idea how many conjurations I have running around this building? This city? Hundreds. Maybe thousands, by now. I’ve actually lost track, which I never thought was possible. She’s been forcing me to scrape the bottom of the barrel for hours, now.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve all got problems. Hang on. I just saw a bunch of your pets run off that way. Must be where the cops are.”
Dread crept up closer to the corner. Now, the name of the game was to get as close as he could, get right on top of them so that he could ambush them both before they had any idea what was happening. Otherwise, Martin might hide behind one of Oswald’s shields while his bouda looped back around to tear him apart.
“Should we go after them? Help Caleb out?” Martin’s voice again.
“Nah, fuck it. Let him and the bouda do the work.”
“Caleb’s my friend, man.”
“Hey, good for you. You’ve got a friend.”
Dread was almost on the corner, now, as close as he was going to be able to get before Martin and Oswald would be able to see him. The way they kept chattering away casually, he knew that they hadn’t the slightest clue about the doom that was about to hit them.
He could feel it rising up in him; the urge to cut loose, to cut the slow tension of creeping up on them with sudden violent action, but he held it down for now, kept it in check and under control enough to think the next few seconds through. He couldn’t see who was standing where in the elevator lobby and he didn’t want to have to make snap decisions once the fight was on.
Once he rounded the corner, it was going to one of two targets that he lined up on first. Best if it were Oswald; Dread could kill him and then Martin wouldn’t have a Defense mage’s shields to hide behind. Then, hopefully, Dread could kill Martin, too, before he was able to conjure up some horrible creature to tear into him.
If it was Martin that he lined up on first, though, he would have to kill him right away and then take his chances that Oswald might get a shield up in time to protect himself… which he almost certainly would. Either way, Dread knew that no matter what else happened in the next few seconds, Martin had to die, even if that meant Dread would end up going next. Once Martin died, his conjurations would go with him, and the rest of the team… not to mention the entire city… would have a much better fighting chance.
He took a second to steel himself for the violence he was about to let loose, checking to make sure the safety on his weapon was off and that there weren’t any other little details he was forgetting that might get him killed for lack of thinking straight in the moment. Then, there was nothing left to do but turn the corner and set it all off.
Everything in his body and mind went reflexive as he made his move. As he’d done a million times before, his weapon came up, lined up on the first target he saw, and cut loose.
Dread
It was Martin. So be it. His eyes went wide with terror as he saw me come around the corner, and he barely had time to throw his hands up in front of his face before I pulled the trigger on him.
I almost felt sorry for the bastard, until I remembered that poor woman in the mall who’d been chewed to pieces by one of his Hell Hounds. Remembering her screams, remembering her blood on my hands after I tried to help her, I held that trigger down on Martin, nearly tearing his body in half with my F-shok.
It was overkill, but I had to, I had to make sure that he would go down and stay down, that there was no scrap of life left in him that would allow his bouda to swarm all over Shifty and Jolly. Once it was clear that there was nothing left of Martin but hamburger, I swept my fire over onto Oswald, hoping to shut that asshole up for eternity in a two-for-one deal.
No such luck. Just as I’d predicted, he had a shield up in time to catch my barrage. Splotches of blue energy appeared in the air in front of him
as my buckshot tried to break through his defenses, but I knew it was useless.
Any decent Defense mage can hold off an assault from only one shooter. And Oswald had been Revived, which meant his abilities were turbo-charged now.
Fantastic. So now what? I couldn’t charge him and try to go hand-to-hand; that shield would hold back my body the same as my bullets. And while I could keep him on the defensive with heavy firepower, that tactic would only last until my belt of ammunition ran out. Then, he’d be free to respond with that full-auto Glock I could see in his right hand, the same kind he’d used back at the mall.
I had to back off and come up with some way to out-maneuver him. And the only way to buy myself enough time to retreat, was to lay on as much full-auto firepower as I could, so I ended up burning through the rest of my belt of twelve-gauge ammo as I backed away from him.
He stayed behind his shield the entire time, staring at me with murder in his eyes. As I backed up, he followed me, but maintaining his shield in front of him kept him from moving as fast as me, so I gained some distance by the time my ammunition ran out.
The good news was, when I ran out of ammunition, I had reached a four-way hallway intersection, so I could easily duck behind a corner for cover. The bad news was, that was the last belt of ammunition I had for the F-Shok.
It pained me to throw that weapon away, but without ammo, it was nothing but a heavy anchor weighing me down uselessly. I shrugged the F-Shok’s sling off of my shoulders and ditched it as I dove around the corner of the intersection.
Bullets chased me as I went; Oswald cutting loose on full auto with his Glock. Well, two could play at that game. I had a full auto Glock of my own in my holster, courtesy of the FBI’s armory, and I pulled it and stuck it around the corner in the general direction of Oswald, firing without looking, mostly just to give him something to think about and slow him down.
After that, I was on the run, sprinting for the next hallway intersection before Oswald could round the corner and light me up with his Glock. I still didn’t have any idea how I was going to get around his shields, so I was pretty much buying time until some solution found its way into my thick skull.
I fired blindly down the hallway behind me as I went; again, more to slow Oswald down than to actually hit him. I risked a look backwards as I started to round the corner of the next intersection, and that’s when the pressor wave hit me.
Oswald’s abilities had definitely been upgraded since last we spoke. His pressor wave might’ve snapped my spine, if I hadn’t been wearing that warded body armor we picked up in the FBI armory. As it was, it still felt like a damn wrecking ball hit me.
The glyphs on my armor glowed bright blue as they dissipated the force of the blast. My legs flew out from under me and I launched through the hallway intersection to impact with a wall on the far side, landing in a heap a second later. I must’ve rounded the corner of the intersection partially when the wave hit me, and the wall caught some of the force, and that helped to save my ass. In any case, I wasn’t completely out of commission when I hit the floor. I was able to roll completely behind the corner before Oswald could chew me up with the long burst he fired from his Glock.
One of his bullets did hit a plate on my body armor, without effect, and another hit an exposed spot on my leg where there was no armor to protect it. It was only a graze, though, and now I was safe behind the corner, at least for the moment.
“Remember this gun, Dread?” he shouted at me. “This gun that you said you were going to make me eat? Man, I love this gun.”
Speaking of guns, mine was nowhere to be found. It must’ve gotten knocked out of my hand from the impact of Oswald’s pressor wave, or maybe I’d dropped it when I hit the wall. Either way, it wasn’t in my hand or anywhere in sight. All that bitching I did at Mickey for losing her weapon, and now I’d gone and done the same damn thing. My old drill instructor back at Parris Island was probably spinning in his grave.
Oswald fired another burst, even though I was solidly behind cover and he couldn’t see me. He kept talking the entire time, but I couldn’t hear him over the gunfire. With all the ammo he was burning up, he must’ve been using those long extended magazines again, because he was spraying bullets at me like he was spraying his words, flinging them far and wide and uselessly.
It made me hate him even more. He was shooting just to shoot, talking just to talk, more caught up in feeling like a big shot than actually getting something done. I could feel the rage that I keep buried deep down inside of me start to rise to the surface. I let it come. I’d had enough of this asshole. He’d rung my bell with that pressor wave, but unlike the fight at the mall, this time I wasn’t incapacitated. I was pissed.
He had the gun. He had the shields. But I wasn’t going to run.
I had the advantage of wearing body armor and the fact that I was fighting a piece of shit bully who was used to being able to hide behind force fields. Having a crutch like that creates bad habits in a man, weaknesses of both technique and character, if the man will let it.
Oswald was definitely that type. A bully is a man who is hollow at the core; he’s always looking for the one-sided fight, the sure thing, the easy way out. Bullies run like hell from any real resistance, run and hide and never face the problem. They just look for a weaker target. It’s why they tend to fold when they’re confronted with real resistance, with a problem they can’t run away from or cheat their way around. They’ve always run away from the work, the pain of having to fight through something bigger than yourself in order to become something bigger in return.
They never try to earn it.
The best way to take out a bully, is to force them into a tough situation, without any way to wriggle out of it. Don’t let them run away to find a weaker target. Make them face the music.
That’s what I planned to do with Oswald. All I had to do was figure out a way to get close.
“Where’s your little girlfriend?” he shouted at me from around the corner. “She’s not here to protect you, now.”
“She’s not here to protect you, Oswald,” I said. “I’m not here to arrest you this time. This time, I’m here to put you in the ground.”
“Yeah? How do you think you’re going to do that, tough guy? Hunh? You going to try to make me eat this gun, or what?”
It came to me, then. I didn’t have any more guns. There was a knife on my belt, but the best tool for the job was sitting in one of my vest pockets. A flashbang grenade.
Flashbangs are non-lethal devices that do pretty much what they sound like they do; make a lot of noise and a lot of light. They’re mostly used as distraction devices; if one of those goes off in a confined space, the concussion will ring your bell for you, maybe disorient you. The sound will definitely make you go deaf. If you’re looking straight at it when it goes off, you might be blinded for a few seconds, like if somebody set off a camera flash in your eyes.
As soon as Oswald saw the grenade, before it had a chance to go off, he’d get a shield up between himself and it. But he’d also probably be looking at it as it went off; it’s only natural. After all, if someone tossed a grenade at you, wouldn’t you tend to look at it?
That might give me enough time to close the distance and grab his gun hand. Then, it would be a whole new ball game.
There wasn’t any time for a Plan B. Oswald was practically on top of me, right around the corner of the intersection, and there was nowhere for me to run and hide. So, I pulled the pin on the flashbang, let the spoon fly, and chucked it around the corner at Oswald.
I tossed it hard, going for the bank shot. It rolled past his feet to rebound off the wall and skitter behind him, and exactly like I’d hoped, his eyes watched it the whole way.
His left hand stabbed out in front of him and his shield came up. I was already on the move toward him while his back was turned, my eyes locked on his gun hand while his eyes were locked on the flashbang spinning across the floor. Then, the flashbang blew and everything got
a little hazy.
Here’s the thing about concussion. When an explosive goes off, the concussive blast doesn’t travel in a simple straight line. It spreads outward like waves on a pond when you drop a stone in it. If that wave hits a wall, it can rebound off it… like if you slap the water in a bathtub, the wave travels across the tub until it hits the far side, and then it reflects back. So when a flashbang goes off in a confined space, like a hallway, the concussion bounces off the walls and all over the place, shaking up everyone and everything. It’s what makes them so effective indoors.
Oswald had put up a standard, linear shield… like a flat rectangle. It’s what Defense mages usually default to, pretty much by reflex. It’s the simplest, easiest, quickest shield to create. And, when you’re surprised, you go back to your default. Which is what he did. The bad news for him was, when that flashbang’s concussion went bouncing off the walls, it was able to ricochet around the edge of his shield and smack right into him.
The bad news was, it did the same thing to me. But I was further away from it than he was, and since I’ve been around flashbangs a lot, I was ready for it. I’d kept my mouth open… that helps to equalize the pressure change in the eardrums and sinuses which accompanies a concussive blast… and my hands over my ears, and I wasn’t looking at the flashbang when it went off.
Oswald hadn’t taken any of those precautions. He probably had no idea that he should. So when the flashbang went off, even though I felt like my spine had been shaken by a giant, Oswald was not only blinded, but the way he reacted, I think his eardrums might have ruptured.
Like I said, the blast had also thrown me off of my game, but I’d already been charging at him when the grenade went off, so my momentum carried me straight into him. He was kind of hunched over with one hand over his eyes and the other held up to his ear, and I slammed into him full force.
Now we were playing my game. No more shields for him to hide behind. No more easy way out. Now he would have to face the music, and this time we were playing my tune.
Mage Hunters Box Set Page 79
